I see the problem with RxNorm. The counter-problem (apart @rchen’s observation about the pharmacodynamics of blood products) is that unlike most devices, blood products have a dose (in units not necessarily of, well, units). They also have a route, but that’s a bit peripheral, as it’s for all practical purposes intravenous in nearly all cases. So that makes them more drug-like. They don’t have some OHDSI drug-like characteristics such as refills, or eras in the same sense as many long-term meds, but they share that characteristic with a number of acute-care drugs.
All of this is to say that I don’t have a good general answer to the problem. Conceptually, I want to put them in the same group as LVPs like IV fluids, but for the RxNorm problem. Perhaps a candidate for a future proposal as an OHDIS RxNorm extension?